


The Swordsman

by aelangreenleaf



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelangreenleaf/pseuds/aelangreenleaf
Summary: “Are you lost, boy? Because you’re a bit too blonde and a bit too tall to be a Volantene.”The boy looks at him for a long moment, before sweeping his eyes around the room once, as if making sure they are alone. “I am looking for Jaime Lannister,” he says quietly, his face serious and still [and something in the boy’s face then tugs on his memory, though it slips away before he can pin it down].
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 14
Kudos: 184





	The Swordsman

**Author's Note:**

> A sort of fix-it? Maybe? One-shot.

There’s an old bell he’s tied to the top of the door – he put it up there to stop students coming up behind him and startling him. Old habits die hard, and several years ago he nearly ran through one of the local shipping magnate’s sons with a sword before he caught himself.

He hears it ring, irritated to hear it. It’s getting late in the afternoon – his pupils are all gone for the day, and he is putting away the tourney swords and wooden blades before starting again tomorrow.

“Can I help you?” he asks, without turning. He cleans the flat edges of his blade with a cloth, his right arm holding it steady.

“Are you the swordsman? The Westerosi knight? The one who trains the boys of Volantis?”

He finishes cleaning the blade, the last swipe of the cloth leaving the metal shining and bright.

“I don’t have space for any more students this season, but tell your father to send me a note with your name, and I’ll include you with the next set of students.” He puts the sword back in its scabbard, the last of his cleaning done for the night.

“I’m not here to study,” the newcomer states, and at that he finally turns around.

“Gods, you’re a tall one!” he exclaims, and the boy before him really is, matching his height or perhaps even exceeding it. And he is still very much a boy – his tanned face smooth and still holding on to the plump skin of youth – impossible to tell how tall he is yet to grow.

The boy shuffles his weight a bit at that, and he can tell he’s touched a nerve. “Yes, so I’ve been told.” He steps forward now, past the edge of the door, and his features becoming even clearer. He can tell the boy is Westerosi – blonde, fair skinned turned tanned, and speaks with the accent of someone high-born. He is dressed simply in non-descript traveller’s clothes, his rough-spun trousers and light shirt clearly an attempt to have him blend in with the Volantene (though that accent would give him away immediately the moment he speaks).

“Are you lost, boy? Because you’re a bit too blonde and a bit too tall to be a Volantene.”

The boy looks at him for a long moment, before sweeping his eyes around the room once, as if making sure they are alone. “I am looking for Jaime Lannister,” he says quietly, his face serious and still [ _and something in the boy’s face then tugs on his memory, though it slips away before he can pin it down]._

Jaime’s hand drops down onto the table, grabbing the pommel of his sword. “Careful, boy.”

“My father sent me,” the boy continues, taking a step forward, and Jaime hand nearly unsheathes the sword on instinct before forcing himself to relax his hand. “He told me to give you this.” He extends his hand, a gold ring in his palm.

Jaime can feel his breath catch in his lungs, can feel his throat constrict. There is a sigil on the ring – a lion frozen in gold, roaring silently in the metal. He loosens his grip on his sword, reaches out towards the boy’s outstretched hand. The ring is as he remembers it – he remembers seeing it on his father’s finger whenever he received visitors at Casterly Rock, a quiet reminder to whatever farmer or peasant or salesman that they were in the presence of a predator, a lion, a Lannister.

He looks up again at the boy, and chuckles softly to himself in realization. He’d heard that his brother had had a son – some bastard he’d gotten on a nameless woman who’d been legitimized a year or so after King Bran had taken the throne. He’d heard nothing of the mother, nor anything more about the boy after that, thought he had been happy – truly happy – to hear that his brother had someone else now, another Lannister to keep him company. He’s thought of the boy before, in abstract – thinking about what his nephew might look like, what his dear little brother would be like as a father.

“So Tyrion sent you,” Jaime continues, eyeing the boy up and down again. He can see the Lannister in the boy now – the high cheekbones, narrow nose – but there is something else there, something that dances on the edge of recognition for him, something that he feels he recognizes and _knows_ in the marrow of his bones. He pushes it aside for now, unable to pinpoint it.

The boy nods. “We need your help, ser.”

Jaime barks a laugh. “Not really a ser anymore, my dear nephew, and I doubtful an aging one-handed knight can do anything for you that a younger, two-handed man could not.”

The boy furrows his brow, unconvinced. “There is a rumour that comes to us from the east – a rumour of something brought back to life, of some old, dark magic that should not exist. King Bran believes you can help.”

Jaime scoffs, leans back against the table behind him. “There are always rumours from the East – rumours of things in the Smoking Sea, in the ruins of Valyria. They are just rumours.”

“I think you know, ser, that I would not have been sent here by King Bran for mere fishwives’ tales.”

He has to smile at that. “How old _are_ you boy? You sound like a knight, not a boy barely old enough to squire.”

The boy shifts on his feet again – he truly _is_ a serious one. “My mo- the Lord Commander says one is never too young to try to lead.”

He laughs aloud at that. “You sound a lot like someone I knew – she was always an honourab-“

And then it hits him.

It hits him all at once.

The solemn, serious look on the boy’s face. The complete lack of haughty lordship; a quiet, humble confidence. The height. The blond hair, the fair skin turned tan. And those eyes – eyes more blue than the waters of the Sunset Sea, eyes that shine like sapphires.

Jaime’s legs fail him – he grabs the edge of the table with his left hand, his right arm coming down hard onto the surface below.

Instantly the boy is at his side, catching his elbow. “Are you alright, ser?”

Jaime can only gape at him, breathless.

The boy is close now – so close that he can _see_ Brienne in his features, can see the same frustrating, earnest altruism shining through.

“Wh-what’s your name, boy?” he whispers.

“Duncan,” he tells him, helping Jaime back up onto his feet. “Duncan Lannister”

He has to smile at that – of _course_ the wench would name her son after a knight, a true knight. _Their_ son, he dares to think, and he has to fight the tears pulling at the corners of his eyes. He’d heard, of course, that she’d come south after the sack of King’s landing; he’d paid a Westerosi sellsword nearly his own weight in ale to tell him as much as he knew about what had gone in his homeland. He’d heard that his brother was now the Hand of the King, that Bronn had finally gotten his castle & gold, and that Brienne… that Brienne was now Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, a knight worthy of song. But a child - no wonder they had hidden the boy away at first, the bastard son of a traitor. No wonder Tyrion had made him his own, cleaning up the mess left in his brother's wake.

He knew when he’d left that there was no going back – there was no way to make right what he’d done so long. It didn’t matter that he’d gotten his sister out, that he’d made it to the ship in the bay before bleeding out, that he’d survived the high fever that haunted his every breath for two long weeks as they crossed the Narrow Sea. None of it mattered, in the end, because still now, years later, he still hears her choked sobs as he turns to leave, still feels her hands pressed to his cheeks as she begs him to stay. He still dreams of the look of sorrow in her eyes, of that deep and enduring pain. 

“Are you certain you are alright, ser?” Duncan – _his son,_ his strong and hale and hearty son – asks, his eyes tense with concern.

“Did your mother – the Lord Commander – tell you why she sent you? Or how you all knew to find me here?”

Duncan scowls a bit then, and Jaime has to bite back a laugh (or is it a sob?). The boy might look like Brienne, but that scowl, that scowl is all Lannister. “How did you know - ?” the boy starts, then shakes his head. “She told me you’d know why they sent me, though I don’t quite know what she meant by that. I know you are my uncle, my kin, but I am not sure why she thought I would be best.”

An escaping tear slips down his cheek, Jaime swiping it away before the boy can see it. “It’s alright, Duncan, it’s no matter. I know why.”

The boy stares at him quizzically with Brienne’s eyes, and it nearly breaks him. “As for how to find you, the shadow in the East is rumoured to wear your twin’s face, some sort of red magic rising. The king knew how to find you – he has… abilities that we don’t always understand.”

Jaime remembers the hall in Winterfell, the heart tree in the Godswood. The battle against the dead, the things Bran Stark knew. He is not surprised to hear it.

A knock sounds on the frame of the door; a man in light Westerosi armour peers into the room. “My lord, we need to get back to the ship.”

Duncan turns, nods at the man. “I’ll be along shortly,” he says, and turns back to Jaime. “Will you come? Will you help us?”

Jaime closes his eyes for a moment – thinks about the long days arriving in Volantis, the fights with Cersei, the day he’d left her, not long after they’d crossed the Narrow Sea. He thinks about scraping a living teaching just one child basic swordplay, then building up slowly to making the barest semblance of a life. He’s been waiting, he knows, waiting for his life to end. He’s always known that when he left that northern courtyard, when he’d left a good and honourable woman brokenhearted in his wake that he’d left all chance at being a good man behind.

But now, he thinks, as he looks into his son’s eyes, maybe he can have that chance again.


End file.
